Thursday, March 2, 2017

Winter Hibernation

I definitely tend towards introversion on the social scale at the best of times, but come winter, my hermit-like tendencies kick it into high gear. And this winter - with its prolonged periods of cold, snowy weather - was no exception.

Not that I'm complaining, I've read some excellent books (I highly recommend anything by Chimamanada Ngozi Adichie), made enough soup to fill a swimming pool, filled every available inch of freezer space with baking and did a lot of nothing.

Well, almost nothing...

There were some fun family snowshoe adventures.

Ski touring on the KVR.

And unusual yoga classes.

After The North Face San Francisco Endurance Challenge in December, I took two entire months off from running. I needed the time off to complete a series of prolotherapy treatments on my torn hamstring. I'm happy to report that I have a much happier hammy now. Not entirely pain-free, but at least improved enough to start thinking about some races.

Since I've been off for so long and gotten terribly out-of-shape, I've decided not to plan any early season races so that I can gradually build up my mileage and, hopefully, avoid more injuries and burnout.

My tentative 2017 race schedule looks something like this:

March - Elevator Multi Sport Relay (road biking)

April - Rainshadow Running Yakima 25km

May - Dirty Feet Kal Park 25km

June - Chelan Century Challenge 100-mile (road biking)

July - Slay the Dragon 50km

August - White River 50-mile

August - Waldo 100km

Hmmm, now it kinda looks like a lot!? Well, I'll just have to see how things go and how my body holds up to a bigger training load. I'm no spring chicken anymore after all ;)

I am, however, pretty excited that spring is coming! And I'm not the only one. My hairy little friend is looking forward to hitting the trails again too.